Into the Darkness

Chapter 7

The last thing David Dahmer remembered was a small, precise prick on his neck, out went the lights shortly thereafter.  Time traveled quickly, when you are asleep and comfortable, time always skates by with the quickest of intentions.  It seems that days had passed by; it was Wednesday now.  David couldn’t uncloud his brain to figure out what day it was he had fallen asleep and who this strange woman was lying next to him.

Her black blouse was draped over the only piece of furniture in David’s bedroom, a half size mirror crudely attached to a six-drawer dresser.  A pair of black pants dangled for their life on the bedroom doorknob.  No panties, socks, or bra were within eyesight, did you really think this young lady wore that type of stuff?  Using his quick analytical brain, David deduced that the naked woman next to him was the infamous Sasha.

Looking over, brain fogged like he was hypnotized, David confirmed that indeed, Sasha Walker was face down with her bare ass up still asleep on his bed.  Streaks of black sporadically skidded all over the pillowcase; mascara had that effect on fabric.  A few streaks of make-up didn’t bother David, it was the blots of red that had, undoubtedly, soaked through the bedspread and into the mattress that covered the stained mattress cover. 

The previously white mattress cover and light bed sheet that went as a pair were covered, spotted like a leopard, in thick blotches of red copper smelling spots.  David inspected himself, ensuring he was not wounded, as his memory was very hazy, to the point that he could not remember even climbing into the bed.  Sasha rolled on her back as she shifted in her sleep, nude on top of the blood-covered sheets, her breasts had handprints of red all over them, a clear sign that something had happened that David did not intend on happening, nor did he have the slightest recollection.   

While David tried to wrap his head around what appeared to be a vicious sexual encounter with Sasha Walker, he began to inspect himself, perhaps he had been injured.  There was so much blood all over the bed, something dramatic had to have happened.  Signs of old David came out as he wondered if his bed sheets would turn to a nice, blended hue of pink once he had the opportunity to wash them.

A very strange feeling hit David, it should have been more remarkable earlier, but it was just now setting in.  He was completely nude; his clothes were nowhere in sight.  If there was one thing David Dahmer did not do, it was sleep in the nude.  There was nothing more vulnerable than a naked sleeping man.  What if he happened to wake from a deep sleep and only to have to fight off an intruder or something along those lines.  He looked over once more at Sasha, specifically the drool that was slithering down her face from the corner of her mouth.

Pulling the thin bed sheet from under Sasha and wrapping it around his naked exposed body, David stood and began to examine his apartment.  What had happened here, there was so much blood, the entire place had different variations of red streaks all over the place?  Sasha was left for all the world to see, spread eagle, breasts on display but that was the last thing on David’s mind.  The fact that he couldn’t recall anything from the last twenty-four hours was horribly unsettling.  Off to his pill tray, where he hoped reality could be wrangled back into place and life would make a touch more sense. 

Almost in a panic, David lunged for the pill tray while trying to remain as quiet as possible to avoid waking Sasha.  The meds would need to kick in before any rational conversation could be had with that devilish woman.  Never looking up from his objective, Tuesday and Wednesday’s pill tray toppers were quickly popped open, and the handful of pills were deposited into his mouth.  As he tilted his head back in a natural pill inserting motion, that is when David noticed the gruesomely disfigured body lying on his couch.

For David, it was near impossible to translate who that was on the couch, the mangled skeleton of a human that rested still as a statue.  The body, destroyed and dissected, looked like an elaborate Halloween decoration instead of what it really was, a formerly alive harvested human being.  This was when David noticed the layer of blood covering his pale skin, the palms of his hands were stained with blood.  Tiny pieces of flesh lived under his fingernails, the very finite pieces of fingernail that there was to live under.  

Slowly approaching the body that had already ruined his couch, the second largest piece of furniture in his apartment after the bed, David shook with fear.  Trembles danced up and down his arms as his knees fought to keep his astonished body upright.  What in God’s name was happening, how was life turning so quickly?  He chewed on his pills, Lithium, Xanax, and Effexor, forgetting that Effexor was a capsule full of small medicine balls.  His mouth filled with hundreds of spec sized balls as a frantic search for saliva took place.  

The stale smell that normally inhabited David’s apartment was replaced with that of copper and a thick sweet smell that he just couldn’t quite place.  Not one person on this Earth would assume that a dead human body would emit a sweet smell, similar to chewed up hard fruity candy, old people candy, but that is the odor it produced.  Within five feet of the grotesquely gutted dead body, David entered a mental state of curiosity.  He wanted to know who this person was, desperately.  

There was a problem, David soon realized, because the body did not have any identifiable characteristics.  Now wishing himself awake, convinced he was in some horrid nightmare, David began to have flashes of his attack.  The quick jabs of violence punched at his brain as he recalled the incident at Davindale’s pharmacy.  The stealing of Ms. Jenkins’ life, the blade that poked holes in her as if she were nothing more than a sheet of loose paper, the precise incision he had traced from her voice box down to right above her vagina.  

David’s mouth began to salivate the way it would if he was about to vomit, pictures of Ms. Jenkins’ spleen echoed through his frightened brain.  The taste of raw, watery meat coated his mouth, the feeling of fibrous strands slapped at his tongue as he traced his teeth.  His heart sank as his kill was confirmed.  Jack and Wendy had witnessed his visceral disembowelment of Ms. Jenkins.  Even though they were his friends, acquaintances for decades, it wouldn’t be long now before the police showed up at this apartment, taking him into custody, leading him to the same fate his older brother had suffered. 

There was no getting around it.  Jack or Wendy, one of them or both of them, had to have taken action in regard to this incident.  No amount of cleaning could clear this place of the bloody evidence, no number of tears could save him from the gas chamber, nothing could stop the actions of the past from having serious consequences on his future.  David was nothing more than a younger version of his serial killer brother, his fate had always been set, it was just a matter of time.

Tears welled from his wide eyes as he compulsively rubbed his hands against the bed sheet he still had wrapped around his naked body.  The more the dark red blood rubbed off onto the bed sheet, the more it seemed to spread.  He was making absolutely no progress in cleaning anything; he was merely making it worse.  His existence was simply making everything worse.  

If this was going to be a survivable situation, David felt he needed to get to Jack and Wendy, eliminate them before they had more time to tell the violent tale.  At this point in time, freedom was the priority.  A mistake had been made and more mistakes would have to fill the void of time if there was going to be any hope of not ending up incarcerated for decades awaiting a needle full of bleach or an airtight room full of white phosphorus.  

As David’s brain entered overdrive and he convinced himself that going to the pharmacy was the right thing to do, a shuffling bounced down the hallway from his bedroom.  Sasha had finally awakened and hopefully, she had some sort of idea on how to help our hero determine what to do, that’s what he was wishing at least.

David was at full tilt, panicking at the very edge of consciousness, “Sasha!  Help!  Come out here now, please come help!”  He was pacing circles, looking from the desecrated corpse of Ms. Jenkins and back at his pills.  It was just a matter of time before they finally kicked in and life would begin to level itself out.  A stumble and a chirp and here came Sasha.

Naked as the day she was born, Sasha emerged from the bedroom, body on full display, “What is it David?  I was sleeping so well.”  Her body was tight, smooth.  Her sun deprived skin was blotted with blood, just like David’s.  She reached back, grabbed two handfuls of hair and pulled the hair tie from her wrist over the wad of hair.  If this were any other sort of situation, David would most certainly have become exceptionally aroused.

David stood in the middle of the living room, clutching the bed sheet with one hand and pointing at the red skeleton of Ms. Jenkins with the other.  Sasha smiled as she teased her body while model walking down the hallway, “Davey boy, you don’t remember?  You should, it was exceptional.  Stop freaking out, it’s all good.  Let’s go see Jack and Wendy, after you fuck me like you did last night, of course.  I haven’t been fucked like that since the night before my uncle moved out of my parents' house and to another state.”

David let that last line soak in, very ‘Fight Club’-esque of her.  There they were, both covered in blood and practically stark naked.  

That was the answer though, they both agreed.  Get to Jack and Wendy, make a plan, and see where to go from there.